Hello, everyone! Crazy last week. Other than the sacred music app (where all my songs are) getting deleted and removed by the church it was a great week.
Monday
- started off Monday with some gate knocking and then went back to the house and got ready for ANOTHER bus ride to Kuala Lumpur. Got to Kuala Lumpur around 6:30pm and had a lesson with a potential on-date and then went home. Wasn't a Pday but very light.
Tuesday
- Pday in Kuala Lumpur, very fun. Had our President interviews and just stayed around the church the whole day. Just cakap kuat (talking a lot) with so many missionaries, talking about areas, funny moments, just growing close with missionaries. Talked with Elder Lambert and was asking him how my cousins and aunt and uncle were doing; if they knew all my older cousins out in Utah. Shoutout to Elder Lambert, got to be around him the whole Zone Conference, he's awesome. Another Elder I have connections to is Elder Haddock, and I was talking with him about Johor Bahru because he did three transfers there and I was giving him all the recent convert updates and how it was doing. Eventually as a Johor District we went out and got some Mexican/Turkish typa food called "stuffed," very very good. Went back to the KLDC (Kuala Lumpur District Center) and had a training from one of the sister missionaries and the transfer slides at the end. Great day.
Wednesday
- Zone Conference with Elder Buckner and wow this man is called of God, no doubt. I can't write a hundredth of what he said but he came into that KLDC and rocked the room for two hours straight. He looked right at the Zone Leader over all of just the city of Kuala Lumpur and said, "We need a stake;" pointed to another sister who is an STL in Kuala Lumpur and said, "When do you go home? You can't leave until there is a stake." He was joking but he wasn't. He said that. I love it so much. That lit a fire in me, Elder Page, and all missionaries who heard that. There's nothing more I want, not even a Cowboys Superbowl than seeing a stake be established here in Kuala Lumpur. AH. Spirit was so strong the entire time. Sister Buckner gave a good training on effort and attitude. President and Sister Ho didn't give any trainings, but they participated in answering questions that Elder Buckner had us all give. Then he went through them
(Since my weekly emails are literally just me journaling my weeks)
Main takeaways
- fail, fail fast, figure it out, fix it.
- working with hard companions is marriage preparation, any companion really (yes, he brought that up and even talked more in depth about it in the mission MLC leadership trainings)
- teach me or take it away
- 1% better, talk by Elder Dunn really good talk.
- a mission is all about change and BECOMING
- a mission is a safety net/laboratory and a time where you are fully focused on making and establishing your discipleship as your absolute HIGHEST priority.
- he constantly mentioned he believed in prophets, seers, and revelators and that he knows there are 15 of them on this earth right now.
- Prophet Nelson saw around the corner and Prophet Oaks can see around the corner (never heard a room more quiet)
- members are supposed to be receiving revelation
- King Follet discourse (which I've sudah read but it was a good reminder to actually slow down and study it in depth, it's not officially recognized by the church as doctrine or scripture for some reason, but it basically is I think)
- NO REGRETS. Slide your shoes underneath your seat on the flight back to MCI and say you have no regrets. Something my first senior companion Elder Day mentioned a lot and it was good to actually reflect on it.
- Book of Mormon words are love letters from the dust. Read it as such. Talked about Moroni juga.
- Did I do what I could with what I had when I had it.
And much more.
I'll stop there and I hope y'all can read something and feel by the Spirit what's one thing y'all want to study more and think more about in terms of active discipleship.
Rest of Wednesday was great. Had my interview with Elder Buckner and then got my blitz companions Elder Reyman and Elder Chadwick. They're great. Elder Chadwick is actually fluent in Spanish, and he has been to Barcelona and Mallorca, so you already know I was talking to him about that. He's also a Mandarin called Elder. On the train ride home, me and Elder Reyman were talking about a lot, and he reminds me so much of my older brother. It's actually crazy he looks like him and talks like him. So funny. Felt like I was just in KL with my Bro. We went to the Petronas Towers and best of all, I got Taco Bell🙏🏻🙏🏻 such a blessing.
Through the blitz we met people from:
- Yemen🇾🇪
- Saudi Arabia🇸🇦
- multiple from Japan🇯🇵
- Pakistan🇵🇰
- Germany🇩🇪
- China🇨🇳
- Switzerland🇨🇭
- England🏴
- Singapura🇸🇬 (not a surprise but still)
And honestly, I'm missing some. And that was all in the span of maybe 2-ish hours.
diversity.
Thursday: bussed back down to our areas and had half a day in Johor Bahru. It was really solid. We prayed out of last transfer together and then prayed into the new one since we're staying together, me and Elder Page. Went out finished weekly planning. Did some shoplot finding, talked to some Ibans from Sarawak which are super rare to find out here in West Malaysia. Finished it off with some classic mixed rice BWR.
Friday: first full day of JB Elders two in the history of the Malaysia/Singapore Mission. We welcomed in Elder Stevenson and Elder Png and got them up to speed and told them where to go because of course, they're both super lost right now getting double-transferred to a new area. Great day though. We did a lot of contacting, more Johor Jaya shoplot finding. I was not feeling good at all, but I wouldn't let myself sit down and take a break. Memang saya sombong. Terus bermajulah. Was close to passing out but aye we made a friend on the last contact before our dinner block. It was awesome. He was super cool and from Singapore, so we just passed him off to the Singapore Elders.
Saturday, exchange with Elder Stevenson
- wow what a day with Elder Stevenson. Zone Leader and it shows. Guy has charity. Every single person in leadership in this mission has charity. You need charity as a missionary. He's so so awesome. Just super loving, high expectations, high love, we found a ton that day. A lot of Johor Jaya shoplot finding, a lot of gate-knocking neighborhood finding. Tried a new area Elder Stevenson has obviously never been to considering it's only his 3rd day in Johor Bahru. But even for me in my 3rd transfer, 3 months living in Johor Bahru I've never been there. It was great, a LOT of Hindus. We just talked and talked and he REALLY got to know me. I told him about a lot of stuff, life before mission, interests, thought process on so many different subjects and he just sat and listened the whole day. We're super tight now and he was just great at ministering, and we had a long talk at the end of the night after a Great nasi lemak makan. Told him some things that have been going this last transfer. My interview with Elder Buckner. It was just a great night.
Sunday
- Sunday was a great day. Church was great with the two Elders coming in and helping them greet and meet with the members. We taught our recent convert and then we did some gated neighborhood gate knocking, door to door. We asked these Pakistani Bro security guards if we could come in and they just took us through right to the owner guy, rich Chinese dude and he said we could go around and berkhubat Injil Yesus Kristus. He was chill. Decent number of Christians and of course, as always, so many Chinese people. Elder Page and me, as always, were just talking and talking and getting closer. He told me the entire plot of Crazy Rich Asians. He told me there's Malay in the movie so memang Saya akan menonton wayang itu bila saya kembali ke America Syarikat lagi🇲🇾
Anyways, we ended it off with a great lesson and we put a Filipino on date for baptism. We have a lot of Filipino members and they just cakap so kuat in Tagalog and their local dialects. No just because I speak Malay does NOT mean I can understand a WORD they are saying. But they translated our English and he said he wanted to be baptized on February 8th!
Love yall, another week down. A great week. Focused on being 1% better every day. Another week ahead in the great city of Johor Bahru. Sangat best.
-Elder Barlow🇲🇾
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